Dickie grows into a beautiful, spirited, if physically disabled child, the “child-king” of his small domain. His mind is fed on stories: sacred tales of St. Francis and St. Christopher told by Mademoiselle de Mirancourt on the sunny terrace, and gallant stories of Merlin, King Arthur, Sigurd and Brunhilda, and the Norse gods told by Katherine in winter twilights. Through these stories, Dickie begins to trace a recurrent idea—that all excellence demands payment in self-restraint, labor, or bodily pain. This idea fascinates him, leading him to sympathize with ill-favored creatures and to draw grotesque half-human monsters in the margins of his school-books. When Dickie is about thirteen, the sheltered world of dreams begins to give way. Roger Ormiston returns to Brockhurst after years of military service in the Sikh wars, China, and the Himalayas. Dickie is captivated by this “veritable demigod.” Katherine, moved by old memories and present anxieties, tells Dickie that one of the horses killed his father, that the accident happened even before Dickie was born. Dickie realizes for the first time that his mother has an existence apart from him, and he concludes bitterly that he is glad his father never saw him. His childhood’s content is over.
Dickie and Ormiston then set out together in a dog-cart from Brockhurst. Ormiston buckles a broad safety strap around the boy to secure him on the seat—an arrangement that wounds Dickie’s pride even as it reassures his body. They drive through the long fir avenue and out into the lanes and village of Sandyfield, Dickie drinking in every detail of the passing countryside. Beyond a long white-railed bridge, Ormiston opens into an allegory of Bluebeard’s locked room, confessing that most men carry within them a private chamber of ugly memories they must visit alone, and that only one person in the world can truly help them. Their drive ends at the Cathcart house, where Mr. and Mrs. Cathcart are absent, but Mary Cathcart herself comes to meet them. Ormiston unbuckles the strap and carries Dickie indoors. A long-awaited romantic reconciliation unfolds: Ormiston and Mary confess that they have cared for each other all these years, and Mary accepts his proposal. Dickie, watching them, feels dazzled yet strangely desolate, learning that those he loves have lives and passions beyond him.
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